


A Citizen of the World

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: A picture of Blair's childhood





	A Citizen of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'sentence'.

A Citizen of the World

by  Bluewolf

Blair Sandburg had been an avid reader from his earliest years. He had actually learned to read before he was four - he realized one day that the symbols under the brightly-colored pictures in the books Aunt Ruth read to him depicted the words she was saying. And when she realized that Blair understood what the symbols said, she encouraged him to read them to her, helping him when he encountered a word that was new, and quickly discovering that his interest age was far in advance of his chronological age.

Aunt Ruth looked after him for much of the time while his mother worked. Naomi's job, working for a travel agency, took her all over the world, and although she did hope that eventually she would be able to take Blair with her, opening his mind to new places, she did understand that it was impractical to have a toddler with her. Luckily her sister, who was perfectly happy to live in one place, was willing to take responsibility for Blair, who, when Naomi took the job, was two. Naomi, while happy to use Ruth, could only hope that Blair had inherited her own restlessness, her own feeling that staying in one place was boring, and that she could rescue Blair from Ruth before he began to accept the mindset of 'a settled life', which, to Naomi, was a life sentence of misery.

Of course, a lot would depend on her employer's willingness to let her have her young son accompanying her... but because her job involved travelling to a new area, reporting back to him on the quality of the hotels a new tour could use, availability of souvenir shops for the tourists, accessibility and number of tourist attractions, she felt it would be perfectly reasonable to take Blair - once he was seven or eight - on those trips. She knew that some of Mr Carson's clients took quite surprisingly young children with them, and felt that she could made a good argument that a child would see things of interest to children that she, as an adult, might miss. It was, after all, good publicity to include 'plenty of attractions for children' to the description of a tour or a holiday destination, rather than have clients complain 'Nothing for the children to do'.

She was right. When Blair was eight, she suggested it to Mr Carson, and found him surprisingly enthusiastic. 'Plenty of attractions for children' was a definite carrot to dangle under the noses of parents trying to decide on a holiday destination.

Ruth was sorry to say goodbye to Blair even as she assured Naomi that she would be happy to give him a home any time; Blair was sorry to leave the aunt who had been more of a mother to him than his actual mother was, as well as his cousin Robert, and secretly found himself hoping that his mother would find two or three months of having even a well-behaved child around was long enough.

But in fact Naomi found that even as young as he was, Blair was very good company and surprisingly insightful, not only regarding things that would interest children but also unusual things that might interest adults.

And he read. She usually spent two or three months in any new place so that the agency's brochures would give plenty of detail about it, and inside twenty-four hours Blair always found a library. He absorbed the history of wherever they were with the capacity of a sponge.

Occasionally he suggested that wherever they were wouldn't be a good holiday destination, and he was always able to give a good reason for his opinion. As a result, Naomi was more than sorry when, some five years after they started travelling together, Blair said he wanted to go back to America and go to school... because he wanted to go to university.

"But isn't that tying you down, Sweetie?" she asked.

"No. I want to study anthropology - and that'll let me study the world," he said.

A simple sentence - but not one that she could refute, for she had always said they were citizens of the world.

And so Blair went back to America, back to Aunt Ruth... and Naomi carried on looking for new holiday destinations for Mr Carson's clients.

 


End file.
